Sunday, September 07, 2008

Laziness

"Laziness is the habit of taking rest before you feel tired."

Easiest way to overcome laziness is to start doing without thinking much. Once you start, momentum easily builds up. Inertia is what requires the most energy to shake off. Once you overcome the inertia, things get better. With some tasks, it is not easy to overcome laziness. In that case, set yourself a target that you will work for 25 minutes on that task and then take 5 minutes break to review if you want to further continue on that task or not. Chances are most of the tasks get done in those 25 minutes and you feel good.

I do not know if laziness is a bigger problem or procrastination. Sometimes, the difference between them is so blurred. These techniques work for both. For action oriented people, it is easier to overcome these tendencies. For thinkers, things get harder. That's why they say it is no good to be a mere thinker. It is good to be a thinking person who acts as well. You can easily validate - action oriented people generally do better in all walks of life than thinkers. Thinking has its place but unrestrained thinking for too long deprives time and energy from doing something useful and we will remain mere thinkers when action oriented people steal the show even if their action was poor compared to what it would be if we were to put in action even a fraction of our thinking.

There are very few people who have action and thinking in a perfectly balanced proportion. Each of us are skewed in one way or the other. Sometimes I think it is better to pair up with someone who makes up for our lack of action or thinking. It can work well if you choose right partner and manage the relationship well.